Neither do I think it true that "we are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of science, art, philosophy, letters and learning."
I cheerfully admit that we are indebted to Christianity for some learning, and that the human mind has been developed by the discussion of the absurdities of superstition. Certainly millions and millions have had what might be called mental exercise, and their minds may have been somewhat broadened by the examination, even, of these absurdities, contradictions, and impossibilities. The church was not the friend of science or learning when it burned Vanini for writing his "Dialogues Concerning Nature." What shall we say of the "Index Expurgatorius"? For hundreds of years all books of any particular value were placed on the "Index," and good Catholics forbidden to read them. Was this in favor of science and learning?
That we are indebted to Christianity for the advancement of science seems absurd. What science? Christianity was certainly the enemy of astronomy, and I believe that it was Mr. Draper who said that astronomy took her revenge, so that not a star that glitters in all the heavens bears a Christian name.
Can it be said that the church has been the friend of geology, or of any true philosophy? Let me show how this is impossible.
The church accepts the Bible as an inspired book. Then the only object is to find its meaning, and if that meaning is opposed to any result that the human mind may have reached, the meaning stands and the result reached by the mind must be abandoned.
For hundreds of years the Bible was the standard, and whenever anything was asserted in any science contrary to-the Bible, the church immediately denounced the scientist. I admit the standard has been changed, and ministers are very busy, not trying to show that science does not agree with the Bible, but that the Bible agrees with science.
Certainly Christianity has done little for art. The early Christians destroyed all the marbles of Greece and Rome upon which they could lay their violent hands; and nothing has been produced by the Christian world equal to the fragments that were accidentally preserved. There have been many artists who were Christians; but they were not artists because they were Christians; because there have been many Christians who were not artists. It cannot be said that art is born of any creed. The mode of expression may be determined, and probably is to a certain degree, by the belief of the artist; but not his artistic perception and feeling.
So, Galileo did not make his discoveries because he was a Christian, but in spite of it. His Bible was the other way, and so was his creed. Consequently, they could not by any possibility have assisted him. Kepler did not discover or announce what are known as the "Three Laws" because he was a Christian; but, as I said about Galileo, in spite of his creed.
Every Christian who has really found out and demonstrated and clung to a fact inconsistent with the absolute inspiration of the Scriptures, has done so certainly without the assistance of his creed.
Let me illustrate this: When our ancestors were burning each other to please God; when they were ready to destroy a man with sword and flame for teaching the rotundity of the world, the Moors in Spain were teaching geography to their children with brass globes. So, too, they had observatories and knew something of the orbits of the stars.